tidsd

Tidsd is a term used in speculative fiction and game design to refer to a conceptual framework for recording and querying temporally tagged information. In its basic form, a tidsd envisions a compact set of data that captures events, states of entities at specific times, and the causal relationships between actions and outcomes. It is not a recognized standard in real-world data engineering or computer science.

Origin and usage

The word appears as a working term in online discussions about worldbuilding and tabletop role-playing games. It is typically described as a narrative or design tool rather than an implementable protocol. Because it lacks formal specification, meanings and implementations of tidsd vary between authors and projects.

Structure and components

A tidsd is often described as comprising three interconnected layers: a temporal log of events, a state snapshot store for key entities, and a causality or branching module that links events to results and possible alternate timelines. Events carry time stamps and may include participants, actions, and contextual metadata. States provide snapshots of attributes at given moments, enabling reconstruction of how a scene or system evolved.

Applications and limitations

Writers and game designers use tidsd to model timelines, test narrative consistency, and give players tools to explore consequences of different decisions. In technical discussions, it remains a conceptual abstraction rather than a concrete data-structuring standard. The lack of formal definitions can lead to ambiguous semantics and interoperability challenges when different creators attempt to share or reuse tidsd-inspired models. See also worldbuilding, time travel fiction, narrative systems.